2058-6 Sawyers Rule 5 Treasure

[indiansfan]

Sawyers Rule 5 Treasure

It probably looked curious to many teams when the Pioneers drafted outfielder Jeff Sawyers in the Rule 5 Draft this year. The 16th pick went to a team already loaded with offense and Sawyers only had 4 at bats above A ball. Montreal, coming off the Brewster Championship certainly must have felt Sawyers was safe as he didn’t look ready for the big leagues.

What many people didn’t know was how bad outfielder Brodie Dempsey's injury was. Sawyers, a player in the same mold as Dempsey, was going to get a shot in Spring Training and if he didn’t work out he would have been sent back east to Montreal.

Sawyers was drafted by Des Moines in the 6th round of the 2054 draft. He was release in June 2057 and wasn’t signed by Montreal until August. In the minors Sawyers was never even a starter. He only started 23 games in 2056 an 27 in 2057. His highest home run total in a season was 15.

In camp he only his .190. However he hit 6 homers an drove in 11 runs. If he could improve his average the team thought maybe he could replace Dempsey. If not, Mario Kurth would get the shot instead. Kurth his .365 in Spring Training. For some reason, manager Tony Franco wanted to give the kid a chance and Kurth went to AAA and Sawyers went up to the show.

April was a mixed result. Sawyers hit only .182 but hit 9 home runs in a month. So a .182 batting average but an OPS of .810. In May he proved that he belonged, hitting .338, 7 more homers and a OPS of 1.058. Kurth got to spend most of the year in AAA.

Sawyers finished the season with a .280 AVG, .584 SLG, .946 OPS, 4.2 WAR, 39 HR an 100 RBI. With these numbers he had a real shot to give the Pioneers their 3rd Gillstrom trophy in a row. Ollie Long took it home in 2056 an Bill Irvine last year.

Currently with voting still open, it looks like he will finish secon in the voting this year. Still, it is a sign that this team is good and many of it’s stars are young.

[Krathan]

It’s fun when things that that work out.